Saturday, 16 August 2014

Housing in Sutton

In a gushing report, Mike Murphy-Pyle, the “local” Guardian's ace reporter, revealed recently that Sutton council is to build some councils houses! This is something that has not occurred to Sutton’s councillors for 25 years!

However, there is even less to this than meets the eye. First, they will apparently pay for these new homes from the money made from council house sales. A hundred such houses have been sold in the last two years. So what they’re saying is they’ll sell council houses, then use the money to build council houses!

The Tories supported the proposals (which gives you an idea how “radical” they were). It was also reported that councillors took the time to stress, “the importance of making sure the buildings are of good quality”. No flies on these people; this is truly top quality thinking.

Presumably the existing stock of housing managed by the Sutton Housing “Partnership” is already, “of good quality”…

In government, the very same parties as those running Sutton’s lamentable council, are actively slashing the financial support that councils get (see earlier posts). They say “we” cannot afford public services.

However, we can afford to pay, for example,- £ 1 billion a year subsidy to the privatised railway companies, and- nearly £3 billion a year in subsidy to the privatised bus companies!

But we can’t afford to subsidise affordable housing!

The unpaid tax reportedly owed by companies like Boots, Vodaphone and others, to say nothing of the billions squirrelled away in tax havens by “hard working” billionaires, could, if it was collected, pay for housing - and very much more!